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Legends of Persia | Son of the Moon

These two books are sequels to The Road to Alexander, reviewed in the November 2017 issue of Historical Novels Review. The three books can be read as stand-alone novels but are best read as a series, if only because The Road to Alexander is the best so far. This is almost inevitable, since the big leap of imagination takes place in the first book and the next two are built upon it.

Ashley is a young journalist in the third millennium AD who wins a prize to be sent back in time to interview a character of her choice. She chooses her hero, Alexander the Great. All goes well until the return trip goes awry and she finds herself stranded in the third century BC. This is all in the The Road to Alexander. By the time Legends of Persia opens, Ashley has become Alexander’s consort, and thus no longer a wide-eyed stranger but an established member of Alexander’s court. Inthis book we follow Alexander through the conquest of Central Asia, and in Son of the Moon we go with him on the invasion of India. The two sequels are therefore more like conventional historical novels, and the timeslip element is hardly evident. The Greeks have no problem in having another semi-supernatural being in their midst, for they are familiar with nymphs, demi-gods and so forth.

Not that these two books are not colourful, exciting, witty, sexy, inventive and well-researched, but at the end we are still wondering how Ashley will get back to her own time and will she be able to cheat history and avert Alexander’s early death. That must be for the next book.